At the Center Read online

  “I should’ve done something.” But, like I do in games, I choked.

  “He wasn’t picking on you.” She pushes her chair a little closer. Lucy smells sweet, like when Mom opens up a women’s magazine full of perfume samples. “It isn’t your fight, Co.”

  I point at the civics book in front of me, leaf through it until I find the section on the civil rights movement, then find a pic of the Selma march. “That doesn’t mean I can’t take a stand.”

  “But you love being on that team,” she says. “Not as much as you love me, but almost.”

  I blush, but before I speak, she’s looking at her phone, not me. She scrolls, reads, and texts.

  “I’m gonna tell everybody,” Lucy says when she pauses the tap-tap-tap.

  “That you love me?”

  She laughs, almost snorts. “No, about what happened at practice.”

  “No, don’t do that,” I say. “It’ll get back to me and I’ll get in trouble.”

  “Everybody’s gotta get in trouble every now and then.” Lucy points at the civics book. Even though she’s Miss Debate-Club-and-Student-Council, I’ve seen her risk getting in trouble in order to stand up if something’s not fair. “How do you think revolutions start? Somebody’s gotta stand front and center and say no.”

  I start to tell Lucy about what Ashley said, but her pretty browns seem to be turning jealous green, so I simply say, “Maybe.” Unlike my buds who get their minutes, it’s not like I have anything to lose.

  I inch closer, take my hands off the book, and put one hand on Lucy’s back, but she’s not having it. I shrug.

  She turns back to her phone, while I page through the civics book. March on Washington. Selma. Vietnam War protests. Seems like everybody in the sixties, like Austin said, spent their time on the streets. They definitely weren’t watching YouTube.

  “It’s late, Mr. Hopkins,” Lucy’s mom says. She always calls me mister, like I’m a grown man instead of sixteen and a half.

  “I know.”

  I stand to leave, give Lucy a Mom-approved kiss on the cheek, and walk toward the door, not feeling anything like a mister or a man.

  “Good luck on your test tomorrow, Mr. Hopkins.”

  Never mind the civics test. I’m about to find out whether I’m a good man who stands up or a bystander who just stays seated.

  8

  Wednesday afternoon

  December 14

  Vestavia Hills High School gym

  During lunch, Principal Page comes to our table and tells A.C. and Gerald to come with him to his office. Not me, not Jayson. We just sit like two losers not picked for a team. It’s only when I go into the locker room for practice that I see the two of them suiting up in practice jerseys.

  “What happened?” I ask. They talk over each other, but the gist is that Principal Page said if they apologized to Coach, he’d let them back on the team. They said they didn’t like it, but it was a small price to pay for getting to play. They said Coach must’ve been told to cool it because he didn’t look them in the eye as he mumbled an apology too. “What about Jayson?” I ask.

  They avoid looking at each other or me. The locker room floor beneath them grabs their attention like some wreck on the freeway until finally A.C. says, “No, he’s off the team for good. What he did was stupid. I don’t see that our leaving the team would help him, and it just hurts us.”

  “That’s not what you thought yesterday,” I snap. I don’t know why I’m mad at them because it’s not like I did anything either, but something about this seems wrong. “I thought you—”

  “We didn’t think,” A.C. says. “Besides, I think everything is gonna be OK.”

  I picture Coach and how he stares at my buds from stretching exercises to scrimmage, like he’s waiting for them to fail so he can rage at them. It’s not gonna be OK, I think.

  During scrimmage, I’m in for Jayson—shoes so big to fill that I feel small, like a child’s toy. And I must be made of wood, the way Lex hacks at me with his lumberjack hands on almost every play, which goes to show how stupid he is. It’s not like I’m going to take the shot, since Coach’s offense hinges on the center distributing the ball, not taking it to the hoop.

  When I get to the foul line, Lex accidentally-on-purpose bumps into me. “Good luck, Domino,” he whispers. I bounce the ball too hard and too often, focusing not on the hoop but on Lex and Coach’s hollers and all the nonsense.

  “Shoot already!” Lex shouts.

  The ball clangs off the backboard as I miss the first. Lex passes it back to me, hard, like he’s trying to hurt me or something. I step away from the line and take a deep breath. I avoid the eyes of Lex and Coach willing me to fail. Instead, I concentrate on the school banner hanging up in the rafters. The Rebels. We had a mutiny, but now we need a rebellion.

  Coach yells at me to return to the foul line, but I push away the distractions. It’s a free throw, and I let my mind be just that: free. Bounce. Bounce. Shoot. The ball goes in. One point. But I don’t stop there. One point leads to another to another. Every winning game starts with a single shot going in.

  “Cody, bleachers, now!” Coach punishes me for my defiance. I take it as a badge. Just before I hit the first step, A.C. and Gerald congratulate me on hitting my free throws.

  “If we had a DH like in baseball,” A.C. says, “we’d get you at the foul line all the time.”

  “I’d need to get my minute to get my chance.”

  “Bleachers!” Coach yells at me again. It’s time. One step, one shot, one woman standing up on a bus, other people sitting down at a lunch counter. Back in the day, a revolution started with somebody firing the first bullet. But I don’t need a gun, fist, or knife to do that. The best weapons now, it seems to me, are a phone and a hashtag.

  •••

  “Cody?” Ashley asks. I guess I spoke with her enough during our assignment that she knows the sound of my voice, not that she probably ever expected to hear it over her phone.

  “I need a favor.” I hate saying those words.

  She’s silent, but there’s nothing but noise behind me as I stand outside my building near the gray court listening to a soundtrack of slams. Jayson’s taking his anger out on the backboard.

  “You know that thing you said about how evil wins when good people do nothing?”

  “Well, somebody else said it. I just shared it.” She laughs. “Kind of like retweeting.”

  “I’m a boy, not a bird, so I don’t tweet.” Ashley laughs again. I like the sound of it.

  “So, does Lucy know you’re talking to me?” Ashley asks. Behind me booms the loud thud of dunks. “I mean, I don’t want any trouble with her.”

  “No, but I’ll tell her,” I confess. “Guess what? I want trouble from her even less.”

  She laughs again. Who knew I was this funny? “So what do you need, Cody?”

  “A hashtag,” I say with all seriousness in my voice. I proceed to explain my ignorance of all the stuff that seems to suck up everybody else’s time. “So can you help me, Ashley?”

  “What’s it for?”

  I tell her about what went down with Coach. She goes all silent again. “Ashley?”

  “Look, I’ll help you one time, get it started, but that’s it,” she explains. “This isn’t my battle to fight. It’s yours. So what do you want to do? Fire the coach? What do we call it?”

  In the background, I hear Jayson crash another dunk. “Bring back 45.”

  9

  Thursday morning

  December 15

  Vestavia Hills High School gym

  “Have you seen it?” A.C. shoves his phone in my face.

  “Seen what?” I act like I have no idea what he’s talking about, even though I can feel the phone in my pocket blowing up. I’m casual as I peer at the posts that Ashley talked me through creating. #BringBack45.

  “Look, it’s on Tumblr, Instagram, everywhere. Viral!”

  I pretend my nose itches and scratch it to hide my yawn. Spreading the news everywhere took until four in the morning.

  Pretty soon some other friends come up, talking about the same thing. All of them follow and then retweet the latest anonymous post about how Coach treats black players and about the racist remarks he’s made.

  “Think Jayson did it?” A.C. asks no one in particular.

  “I doubt it,” I say. Jayson’s hands are not half skin, half phone like Lucy’s and Ashley’s. “But Coach is gonna think he did it anyway.”

  “Like Austin said the other day in class,” Gerald says, “power to the people, right on!”

  The bell rings for first hour, sending conversations and bodies in different directions toward class. Everybody but me. I’m on my way to the bathroom. I close the little stall door, take out my phone, and share my bile with the whole world by posting more anonymous stuff about Coach.

  Just after I get to first hour late, Mr. Austin even mentions the hashtag in class. For the first time, I feel like a big shot, even if nobody except Ashley knows it’s me. I guess there are two people who might suspect me: Lucy and Coach. With Lucy, I’ll tell her as soon I see her. With Coach, I’ll know whether he suspects me as soon as he sees me. He’ll have my uniform and my head, I’m just not sure in which order.

  •••

  “Whoever did this is gutless!” Coach shouts. The only thing we’ve stretched at practice so far is our patience as Coach goes on and on about what he calls “that tweet nonsense.”

  “The essence of any sport is respect,” Coach starts. He finally moves off the “tweet nonsense” rant and onto one of his canned speeches about the virtues of a successful athlete. He doesn’t mention bullying, his stock-in-trade, as one of these virtues.

  We get through stretching and exercises with a minimum of screaming. I wonder if Page told Coach he needed to turn down the volume. I smile. Maybe “that tweet nonsense” is already working.

  The scrimmage starts. I’m on the bench, but the real game is the social media offensive happening outside this gym. About halfway through, I get on the court as the first team comes down with the ball. Dylan takes a jumper that clangs off the rim almost as loud as Coach yelling “No!” at him. The ball shoots out and I haul it in, dribble twice, make the long pass, but then cut toward the basket for the give-and-go. When the ball comes back to me, Lex has thundered down the court. He’s not in position, so I cut toward the basket. Our uniforms barely touch, but he crashes to the court. I plant my foot, leap as high as I can, and lay the ball against the backboard. It drops for two.

  Coach blows the whistle. It doesn’t just stop the play—it seems to stop time. Everybody’s eyes dart back and forth between me, Lex, and Coach until Coach calls it his way. “Charging foul.”

  I hear A.C., Gerald, and Dylan curse under their breath. I offer my hand to Lex, but he ignores it. The starters take the ball down the court. I get into position but ease off so Lex gets the pass. He’s at the top of the key, ball in hand, like a marble statue. I tuck in my left shoulder as if I was a blocking tackle rather than a backup center and smash as hard as I can into Lex.

  “Now that’s a charging foul!” I shout. Lex crashes, Coach whistles, I smile. My triple-double. I glance up at the banner of the Rebels, and for the first time, I feel I’ve earned that name.

  10

  Thursday evening

  December 15

  Lucy Grafton’s house

  “So, are you proud of me?” I ask Lucy after telling her I’m behind #BringBack45. I don’t tell her about Coach kicking me out of practice or Lex threatening to kick my butt.

  “I thought you didn’t want to get in trouble,” she says, kind of pouty, which makes her look extra cute. “I thought you said it wasn’t your fight. I thought—”

  “And I thought you said that making trouble is how revolutions start,” I remind her. “I didn’t get you involved, because I didn’t want to get you into trouble. You’ve got stuff going for you, and you’d hate me if you got kicked off of the debate team or something. I thought—”

  Lucy kisses me slow and soft since her mom’s out doing something in the garage. When we hear the door open, we break it up. “You think it’s gonna make a difference?” she asks.

  “Maybe doing something makes a difference.”

  “I want to help. No, Co, I don’t want to help. I need to help.”

  “No, Lucy. This is my battle now. You don’t need—”

  “Co, there’s no my, there’s just ours and we. What should we do?”

  I turn over my phone, bring it up, and see that the number of followers has more than doubled just since after school. The idea kicks like a donkey. “We should break up.”

  “What? No! Why?” The panic in her voice almost distracts me from the tears in her eyes.

  “We break up and you tell everybody it’s because I thought the #BringBack45 was stupid, and you be the public face of it. I’ll post stuff, but nobody can know it’s me until it’s over. Coach would kick me off the team, and guys like Lex would kick my—”

  “You can’t get kicked off the team—the team you love almost as much as you love me,” Lucy reminds me. The tips of my ears tingle and burn. “When will it be over?”

  I kiss her for the last time in who knows how long. “When we win.”

  11

  Friday evening

  December 16

  Vestavia Hills High School gym

  Friday started with Lucy and me having a for-public-consumption break-up fight and moved next into the rumor that Jayson’s mom is trying to get him into another school so he can play. Now the day is ending with us getting pounded by the Hueytown team. Even though Coach keeps saying we’ll come back and win, nobody believes it, especially when he already put me in for the last two minutes of the half. He might as well have waved a white flag. I blew my chance to shine: nothing on the score sheet except for zeros and two fouls. And there’s a lot fewer people, especially students, in the stands than usual.

  During halftime, the guy who has been Coach Cool for the past couple days melts down. All eyes are on Coach, so nobody even sees me take my cell out. I hide it under my crossed arms. I’ll get the video up on #BringBack45 before the half starts. It’s a rant-fest for the ages, filled with quotable moments. My favorite is when he yells at A.C. for already having three fouls, then says, “It’s basketball, not guerrilla warfare” and starts making ape sounds. Coach ends with “You all stink! Stop acting like losers,” then says, “Now, go play with confidence.” He’s Mr. Mixed-Messages for sure.

  I hang back as the rest of the team jogs out of the locker room. “Let’s go, Cody!” he yells at me. Since I touched the ball, I’ve earned his wrath.

  “Coach, I think I twisted my ankle. I just need a minute.” His eyelids flicker, and his mouth twitches like he’s got a smart comeback ready to burst out like an alien from his chest.

  “Walk it off.” That’s his answer for every injury. Broken arm? Walk it off. Gunshot wound? Walk it off. Amputated feet? Stump it off, I guess. Coach turns his back and heads off toward the gym. I upload the video, fist-bump Jayson’s empty locker, and put away my phone.

  As I fake-hobble toward the gym, it’s like they started the game already because there’s a ton of noise. It’s the loudest it’s been since we scored the first of ten pathetic baskets. When I reach the gym, I identify the source of the noise and smile wide. Up in the bleachers, which are now packed with students, stand Lucy and Ashley. Together they hold a huge white blanket with “#BringBack45” painted on it in black. Around them stand maybe fifty students: some white kids I recognize, along with all the black kids at school.

  The chant “Bring Back 45” starts with Lucy, and pretty soon other people, mostly students, join in. Coach’s face turns a deep shade of red.

  All the players on both teams are standing, pointing at people, and talking to one another. The coach on the other team looks confused—he’s gotta get a Twitter account.

  “Sit down!” Coach yells at us. In the bleachers, everybody keeps chanting, although they’ve changed it up. They shout “bring back,” then clap twice, and when they say “forty,” they hold up four fingers on their right hand, then on “five,” they hold up five fingers on their right hand. The only person who looks more upset than Coach is Brittany Holland, Vestavia Hills cheerleading captain, since this chant is getting more response than anything she ever led.

  The refs motion—because they can’t shout over the noise—for the coaches to meet at center court. They huddle up like it’s football season. The chant’s still going strong, but it dies down when almost everybody reaches for a phone at the same time. My guess is they’re all looking at my video of Coach’s half-time meltdown. The noise rises like the tide.

  I know I’m right when, instead of chanting, people start mocking that gorilla sound from the vid. All the players on the bench, with the exception of Lex and his friends, are cracking up. The refs yell at Coach to get his team onto the court, which he does. But everybody in the stands and in the school knows there’s no sense in doing that. The real contest isn’t the one on the basketball court between the Vestavia Hills Rebels and the Hueytown High Gophers. It’s the one in the court of public opinion between an old-school coach and the new media of “#BringBack45.”

  12

  Sunday evening

  December 18

  Hill Top Apartments

  “So this is it?” I shout at Jayson as I launch up an alley-oop pass. He leaps, catches the ball, palms it in his right hand, and slams it into the net. “You’re the enemy now.”

  Jayson passes the ball back to me. “I need to play. It’s the only way out.”

  “Are they gonna let you wear number 45 at your new school?”